Reviews

Record #880: Blindside – Silence (2002)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald / 1 Comment

I’ll admit it right now—when Sweden’s Blindside first captured the attention of America’s disaffected youth (groups) with A Thought Crushed My Mind, I wasn’t that impressed. I had several friends who were absolutely obsessed (particularly with the manic refrain of “I’M A VAMPIRE!” from “King of the Closet”) but it didn’t do anything for me. Which is odd, considering that 1) they were the undisputed third member of a trinity that also included Project 86 and P.O.D.—two of the bands that got me to care about music in the first place—and 2) I most certainly wouldn’t have “known better.”

But a few years later, while watching the skateboarding film Grind, I was entranced by a band performing during a competition scene. I did some digging and realized that this was the same Blindside that did the goofy vampire song. Everything about it entranced me. I even asked my amateur stylist girlfriend for the lead singer’s haircut (we didn’t quite get it). I tracked down a copy of both Silence and the following album About a Burning Fire and wore them out. And I’m not afraid to confess that I rebought CD copies of each as recently as last year.

And I’ll further own up to the fact that I spent exactly zero seconds deliberating over this reissue—bizarre new cover art aside. And though I expected to enjoy “Pitiful” and a couple other tracks and cringe through the deep cuts, I found it far more consistent than I remembered it being.

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Record #879: Belle & Sebastian – If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

For the life of me, I don’t understand why it’s taken me almost twenty years from falling in love with this record to purchasing it. As a punk kid coming into college spinning emo, hardcore, and metalcore, Bell & Sebastian felt woefully uncool. Hushed, bookish folk songs about college sexcapades, chronic fatigue syndrome, and complicated relationships with local veterans don’t exactly hit the same way as, say, Sunny Day Real Estate, mewithoutYou, or Norma Jean.

But something about Stuart Murdoch’s sardonic wit and the understated whimsy of the arrangements embedded itself in my flesh like a fishhook, and no amount of too-cool punk attitude could pull it out.

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Record #878: Duster – Together (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

In a day and age where anyone with a smartphone can record an album themselves and distribute it around the world for free, it’s easy to forget the depths of obscurity that the cult bands of yesteryear trudged through.

Take for instance the slowcore outfit Duster, whose two full lengths in 1999 and 2000 received very little attention at the time. But with the emergence of social media and streaming, the few devoted fans of those records started finding each other and spread the word of Duster like gospel. The cult grew so much that eighteen years later, the band reunited, reissuing those two LPs and writing new ones.

And they haven’t missed a beat. Together, their second record since resurrecting, finds the band playing their personal brand of spaced-out, hazy slowcore with so much conviction that you might expect them to have been released twenty years ago.

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Record #877: Incubus – A Crow Left of the Murder (2004)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I don’t remember the events that led to me acquiring this CD as a seventeen year old. I don’t know if there was a music video I saw or a friend who grabbed me by the lapels and forced me to listen to it. Maybe I just saw the psychedelic album art and a band name I recognized and bought it blind.

In either case, this album of mystical, vaguely funky alt-rock managed to capture my attention when I was up to my ears with bands like Thrice, Thursday, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Fugazi. And now, eighteen years later, it still holds up.

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Record #876: Glassing – Spotted Horse (2019)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

When I first heard Glassing a year or two ago, lauded especially by members of Holy Fawn, I listened to a single song before deciding it was too acerbic and abrasive for my tastes. I’m not sure what compelled me to give them a second chance months later, but the switch flipped instantly. I became obsessed with Twin Dream, playing it over and over until that single disc was no longer enough to satisfy my thirst. I bought the first copy of Light and Death I could find, but failed to find Spotted Horse anywhere.

That is, until last month when I received an email alerting me to a reissue, and the speed at which I ordered it might have set some sort of land speed record. And where I have previously lauded Twin Dream as a singular masterpiece that the earlier records merely reflect dimly, Painted Horse might only be weaker by a degree of decimals.

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Record #875: CATERPILLARS – Frontier for the Fallen (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

I spent much of my adult life trying to separate myself from the word “emo.” Sure, part of that was an effort to grow beyond my adolescent self, but the much larger part was a protest to how the word had been stolen by the guylinered mallcore bands of the mid-aughts that I had no interest in at all.

But the truth is, no matter what My Chemical Romance and Panic! At the Disco did with culture’s idea of emo, that doesn’t change my deep love of bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Mineral, Further Seems Forever, et al.

The last several years, I’ve discovered I’m not alone in that. Much of this is due to an online community called Midwest Emoposting, which introduced me to scores of folks with the same idea of what emo should be, which reignited my deep love of the genre. That also introduced me to a number of bands carrying that flame, such as CATERPILLARS, whose new album Frontier For the Fallen is a masterclass in propulsive, sweeping, emotive songcraft.

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Record #874: Mastodon – Leviathan (2004)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

To say that my relationship with metal has been complicated is a bit of an understatement. Even though heavy bands like Zao led me to care about music in the first place, I abandoned metal and hardcore in college. It wasn’t until Deafheaven released Sunbather that I started to dip my toes back in, before diving headlong into bands like Alcest, Isis, Lantlos, and Baroness.

What started as a love of music that subverts metal archetypes grew into a more sincere appreciation for the genre as a whole. Even still, I’ve found it difficult to swallow most of the more mainstream acts.

There is one massive exception to this though, and that is Mastodon, who has consistently proven themselves to be one of the most important metal bands of the last two decades. Their second album, Leviathan, was practically a coup, storming the gates of heavy metal and erecting their own flag over the fortress. It’s a massive tour-de-force, combining the fury of old school thrash with the cerebral acrobatics of prog metal and an almost cinematic sense of composition—all while singing about Moby Dick. 

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Record #873: Miles Davis – On the Corner (1972)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

There’s no point in debating the point that Miles Davis is the most important figure in jazz. No one else is as widely recognized outside of jazz circles nor as influential within them. Throughout the trumpeter’s five-decade career, he pioneered a number of movements, ushering in fundamental shifts in what jazz was. After cementing his status as a bebop great, he went on to pioneer cool jazz, then changed the face of jazz by embracing rock music, psychedelia, electronic instruments, and experimental recording techniques.

That experimental streak was perhaps never as fierce or fearless as on On the Corner, which saw him taking the heroin-hot mania of Bitches Brew and the extended-form ambience of In a Silent Way and distilling them into a dystopian block party.

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Record #872: idle threat – Blurred Visions (2021)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Across the last several years, it’s been almost impossible to have any presence in the Midwestern DIY scene without running into Idle Threat. The Nashville post-hardcore outfit has been the dictionary definition of workhorses, playing every small festival I’ve been to (or organized), and even organizing their own.

And for years, they’ve done this all as an entirely independent band. Then, fate moved the hands of justice, and they were added to the iconic Tooth & Nail Records (alongside fellow indie workhorses Salt Creek and Valleyheart).

That deal brought about Blurred Visions, the long-awaited debut full-length. While it’s obvious that they had some additional funds, it retains all of the passion and earnestness of their early EPs without ever getting unfocused with the longer running time.

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Record #871: Grivo – Omit (2022)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

If you’ve been following my posts at all, you know that I have a fatal weakness for music that marries the heavy with the beautiful. I am powerless to resist just about any album that uses crushing volumes alongside gorgeous melodies and lush atmospheres (it’s kind of a problem, financially speaking).

Even though my record shelves are already stuffed full with such records, I am constantly on the hunt for more. Recently, I was trudging through Spotify’s “Fans Also Like” of bands I already love, and on Holy Fawn’s page, I discovered Grivo, a heavy shoegaze trio from Austin. I was instantly smitten, and when I went to show a friend who I knew would love it, I noticed that he had already sent it to me a few weeks prior.

But where Omit outshines so many albums with a similar ethos is in their glistening ambience, which is reminiscent more of dream pop bands like Cocteau Twins.

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